


through the streets and column cracks

by kannerin



Series: love breeds sacrifice (power tries it’s best) [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mockingbird is one tired Root agent and she didnt sign up to kidnap children, ROOT Uchiha Sasuke, Root Uzumaki Naruto, Root! Team 7 au, Shimura Danzou Being a Child Kidnapping Dipshit, Uchiha Itachi Being a Good Brother, Yamato is very tired, anyway, danzo had to be good enough at acting to hide the fact he had a private army, danzo is very good at faking child death, hes just good at hiding it, hes not nice no matter what this fic may show, i wrote this whole thing in a half hour at two in the morning, itachi is very stressed, kids are exausting, or he tries at least, please enjoy, she just wanted to kill things, team 7 are a bunch of idiots who got conscripted into a private army for bullshit reasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:35:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26065093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kannerin/pseuds/kannerin
Summary: Sasuke is sick and tired of Itachi and his parents pushing off his requests for training, so when a kunoichi in an ANBU mask says he can get training if he comes with her, well...Who would Sasuke be, to refuse such an offer.When he ends up with a team, seals on their tongues and teachers in animal masks and weapons in tiny children’s hands, it all takes a backseat to Sasuke’s mantra of‘With this I'll never be second best. Never’.(Itachi thinks that this might break his soul more than the ANBU missions.)
Relationships: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Yamato | Tenzou
Series: love breeds sacrifice (power tries it’s best) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2042998
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	through the streets and column cracks

**Author's Note:**

> this came to me in a flurry of inspiration as i was working on fleshing out plot for Seas Endure, and I wrote it in at two in the morning on a tea powered creativity binge. people say write the fic you want to read, so......
> 
> here it is!
> 
> title from one of my favorite poems, Venezia by CK Baker.

Sasuke kicks a rock out of his path, meandering around the outskirts of the Compound’s training ground.

“Stupid Aniki…… never has time for me because of _missions_ ,” he seethes, kicking another rock with much more force.

The rock comes rolling back, landing neatly between his feet.

Sasuke looks in the direction of the rock’s path, seeing a tall kunoichi in a bird mask. Sasuke tilts his head, walking over.

“Hello,” the strange kunoichi says. “I am Mockingbird.”

“Sasuke,” he replies, because his mother raised him with manners. Mockingbird sits cross legged in front of him, beckoning for him to do the same.

He does. The kunoichi seems friendly, and she has _muscle_. She has to be strong.

“I heard you talking about your brother. Can you tell me why?”

Sasuke blinks, then the dams open.

“Aniki always says he’ll train with me, and it never happens, and all that happens when I ask about our scheduled training, he just pokes my forehead, or says ‘sorry, I have a mission’, or ‘sorry, maybe next time’, and it’s really annoying. And, I’ll ask Dad, or Mom, and they have clan business, or shinobi business, and it _sucks_!”

Sasuke would have kept rambling, but Mockingbird places a gloved finger over his lips.

“My co-workers would be happy to help you train, Sasuke-kun. Would you like to come with me?”

Sasuke blinks, then grabs Mockingbird's arm.

“You’d _train me_?!”

Mockingbird nods.

“It will be like a mission, to get to your first session. Would you like that, Sasuke-kun?”

Sasuke nods, because Mockingbird says he’ll get _training_! And he won’t get blown off! This is great!

Mockingbird takes out a paper seal.

“We’ll dampen your chakra, so ‘enemies’ can’t see you, and i’ll take you with me to the base.”

Sasuke gives her an arm, and lets her put the seal on. The training sounds like a fun game, and that just makes Sasuke want to train more, if it’ll be fun.

Mockingbird scoops him up, settling him against her hip, and Sasuke watches, enraptured, as she forms one handed seals and shushins them to a concrete hallway. The seal crumbles off his arm when the world focuses again. She sets him down, holding a hand out to him, and Sasuke takes it, letting Mockingbird lead him to an office in the maze of halls.

“Danzo-sama.”

Mockingbird drops into a tight bow, and Sasuke follows suit a few moments later. The old man at the desk chuckles, and Sasuke peeks up.

“Now, Sasuke-kun, you don’t need to bow. What has Mockingbird brought you for?”

The old man is really nice, and doesn’t sound patronizing, like the Uchiha elders, so Sasuke straightens up. His voice is still quieter, because this man is older than him, and Sasuke needs to be respectful.

“Mockingbird-san said that one of her co-workers could train me. So I can be a good ninja!”

Danzo smiles, and shuffles a few papers before picking one up.

“We can make that happen Sasuke-kun. One of my shinobi has taken on a team. They need two more members. Do you think you would like that?”

Sasuke nods, his smile growing wider by the minute. Danzo-sama is offering _training_. Danzo smiles again.

“Mockingbird, hand over your report and then go take Sasuke-kun to his new team.”

“Yes, Danzo-sama.”

Mockingbird holds his hand again, and shushins them outside a door. She knocks three times, and another shinobi opens the door.

“Mockingbird. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Cat. I found another kid for your team.”

Cat crouches down a little to be eye level with Sasuke, and then nods before straightening up. Mockingbird nods once before disappearing in a swirl of leaves.

Cat leads him inside the room. It’s plain, with two beds along the door wall, and four on the opposite wall. Each bed has a trunk at the footboard, and there’s a small bathroom, and another room with shower stalls on the left.

Two kids his age sit side by side on the leftmost bed on the far wall. They stop whispering when Cat closes the door and takes off his mask.

Cat is fairly plain looking, brown hair and black eyes and pale skin. Unusual for Hi no Kuni, but they are in a room with no windows, so they’re probably underground.

The other kids are more interesting though.

The girl is pale as a sheet of paper, and Sasuke can see her veins from where he’s standing. Her eyes are gold, actually gold, shimmery and framed by lavender clan marks and thick lashes. Her hair falls nearly to the middle of her back, and shimmers like her eyes.

The boy is blond, and tan, tanner than Cat and the girl, so he was probably here second. He has marks on his cheeks, and really blue eyes. His hair is spikier, poking every which way like the aftermath of a bomb.

The boy gets up, shooting across the room at him. The girl follows at a more sedate pace, and the closer they get, Sasuke recognizes them more and more.

“Hellooooo! My name’s Uzumaki Naruto, and I'm gonna be the Hokage! Believe it.”

“Umiunagi Amita. I want to head R&D or T&I when I grow up.”

Sasuke respects that they know what they want, and realizes where he’s seen them. The two are the two students at the academy who show up once every two weeks, if the class is lucky.

Sasuke respects that less.

“Uchiha Sasuke. I want… I want to show my family that I can do great things even if I am the spare heir.”

Cat coughs.

“Well, that’s all well and good, but we need to be in bed if we hope to make it to breakfast.”

Sasuke whirls around.

“We have to stay?”

Cat looks at Sasuke like he’s stupid, and nods. He points to the bed in the middle to the right.

“That one’s yours.”

Cat turns and grabs a set of pajamas out of the trunk at the foot of his bed, and the other kids do the same. Cat turns again at the door to the shower stall room.

“You’ll be fitted for training clothes tomorrow, and will receive sleepwear and other necessary items then. Goodnight, Sasuke-kun, Naruto-kun, Amita-chan.”

When Cat has disappeared, Naruto stage whispers from where he’s collecting pajamas.

“Don’t worry about Cat-taicho. He’s prickly, but we’ve been learning more than at the Academy. And Cat-taicho says we can start sparring once we have a fourth teammate, so that’ll be fun.”

Sasuke lays down on his new bed, and thinks about what Naruto said. Sasuke smiles, pulling the covers up to his chin.

 _Ha_ , he thinks, _wait till Itachi hears about this_.

_(Itachi does hear about it, three days after Sasuke goes missing._

_(by that time, Sasuke has a seal on his tongue and a tanto in his hand, trading blows with Amita as Deer-sensei corrects their form)_

_The coup the elder wanted has been abandoned in the face of Sasuke’s disappearance, and three days later, Danzo calls their family to his office._

_“i’m sorry,” he says, and Itachi’s world wavers._

_“dead,” he says, and their family’s world shatters._

_Danzo sets a plain urn in his mother’s hands, and tells them, “it was kinder, on both you and him’, explains, “an ANBU found him in Shi no Mori”, says, “a tiger pack had gotten to him.”_

_The death is announced the next morning, and the morning after that Weasel’s mask is being burned by the Hokage, and Itachi is a jounin again. His parents think that matters, that it will give him time to grieve._

_He thinks that nothing could really matter when his little brother is dead. Thinks nothing really matters when his little brother will never bother him for training again._

_Nothing really matters when Itachi will never hear his little brother call him Aniki ever again._

_The Uchiha clan wears nothing but somber blacks and greys for three months.)_


End file.
